Get your face on fleek with these unexpectedly easy top tips that will have you looking like you’re in the prime of life!

by Eugene Quek /
July 13, 2017

Image: Pexels

It’s all about the base, baby. Get your fundamentals right by prepping your skin with a luminising lotion. Here’s how:

1. Less is best

One of the primary pitfalls of packing on the primer? Pilling. “When you slap on too much primer, the odds are it will pill under your foundation,” says makeup master Dollei Seah. The little lumps of product (the “pills” of the pilling phenomenon) are incredibly irksome because they muss up your makeup and are the prime cause of patchy-looking complexion.

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My ace advice on preventing pilling? Resist the urge to go on a rampage. Restrict yourself to a raisin-sized ration of primer and all should be fine. Oh, and give your face some time to fully absorb each layer before adding the next. A good rule of “thumb” (and I mean this quite literally): If your fingertips feel damp when you press them into your face, give the primer another minute, then test again.

2. Over and under

Any beauty buff worth her bathing salts will know that primer’s meant to go under your foundation, but the stuff is also terrific for touch-ups throughout the day. A dollop over dry patches makes for an instant smoothening fix – but execution is of the essence. When applying primer over your warpaint, here’s a handy maxim: Wiping is wrong. Instead, use brisk “bouncing” actions to buff in your product so it doesn’t ruin your carefully contoured cheeks.

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3. Get naked

Pick a primer with a peachy-pink hue. The universally flattering flush is fabulous as a brightening base on bare skin; on no-makeup makeup days, layering this over your serum and sunscreen should suffice.

4. Pucker up

A pillowy face primer does double duty as a soothing salve for your smackers. Your lips will grab colour better with a smooth surface, so be sure to prep your puckers by slathering on a generous glob of said primer as an intensive lip mask. Give it a good 10 minutes to sink in, then expunge excess with a cotton swab.

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5. Exceptional for eyes, too

Eye primers can seem like redundant add-ons to your regime, but they work like magnets to magnify the sheen and saturation of your shadow pots, so you get the biggest bang for your beauty buck. Most formulas also come fortified with moisturising elements that can be deeply quenching for dehydrated skin, so much so that they function almost like fillers in erasing fine lines. To use, simply pat lightly into lids before makeup for better “grab” of pigments, and top up whenever your under-eye region starts to betray signs of fatigue.